updated 06:15 pm EDT, Fri August 1, 2008

Apple nixes security talk

The organizers of next week's Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas say Apple has decided to pull out of the event at the last minute. The move comes a day after Apple released a Mac OS X security patch amid criticism for its slow response to a documented DNS flaw. The move also also comes on the heels of a decision by researcher Charles Edge -- who had planned to speak about flaws in Apple's FileVault security -- to back out of the Black Hat hacker conference. A source told Networkworld Edge canceled because of confidentiality agreements with Apple.

Black Hat Director Jeff Moss said members of Apple's Security Engineering Team were planning to discuss how "they take security seriously."

Moss told Networkworld that Apple's marketing people "got wind of it" and canceled the planned event because "nobody at Apple is ever allowed to speak publicly about anything without marketing approval." Moss said he had hoped the presentation would have been allowed because the engineers were not planning to answer any questions from the audience. Apple has not commented on the move.

Apple has faced intense criticism over delays in patching a DNS vulnerability known as cache poisoning. Observers had expected the security update released last night would have fixed that problem, but reports have begun to surface that the DNS flaw remains.